On today's Quick Wits, you're gonna hear one of the modules from the Crack, the Calorie Code course within Wits and Weights Physique University. This is a full module all about tracking versus counting calories. It's a little bit of art. It's a little bit of science. You will definitely learn why one is different than the other and what's important and how to do it, effective tools for the job and how to make this part of your journey so that you can get results. Welcome to the Wits and Weights podcast. I'm your host, philip Pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self-mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition. We'll uncover science-backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset, with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Welcome back to the next module of Crack, the Calorie Code, and today we are honing in on the art of tracking calories. Yeah, it's a little science, but it's mostly some art, and we're going to talk about the nuanced approach to do this. That is more than just about numbers. This is not just if it fits your macros. Instead, I want you to think about this whole tracking for awareness situation as gaining insight into how different foods fuel your body and support your goals. That is the key of what this is about, and, for all of us who are using Macrofactor in this program, you're tapping into a tool that already adapts with you as your metabolism adapts, and then it also tracks things like your micronutrients, your saturated fat, your fiber, as well as your body metrics and everything else. So you've got a powerful tool at your fingertips that makes tracking a much more insightful, enlightening and liberating thing, rather than the tedious kind of restrictive thing that some people make it out to be. Keep that in mind, that this tool actually does a lot of the heavy lifting and the insights that we can gain from it throughout this program are going to open up a whole world of possibilities for you getting the goals that you want.

So when we talk about tracking versus counting, I think there's an important distinction, because tracking tracking anything tracking your food, tracking your budget, tracking your lifts is about awareness and informed choices right, not random choices, not emotional choices, but informed choices. And it is not about adhering to strict numbers and limits. It really is not. Even though we set targets, there's still a lot of flexibility around those targets and there's flexibility of choosing how to get to those targets. And this is where the sustainability comes in, because having that flexibility means a healthier relationship with food. We focus on nourishing ourselves and how our bodies respond to the food, choosing indulgences as part of our dietary pattern so that we don't feel like we're restricting right. And again, you have great, really good tools at your disposal to do this. But there is a big difference between saying I'm going to track every single little calorie excuse me, every single little calorie and gram, versus I'm tracking the big picture and I am using minimums, but I have this massive set of choice-based flexibility within that context and that's a very freeing way to look at it.

Then we talk about accuracy. I don't mean being obsessive or neurotic, I mean getting close enough that it more than allows you to meet your goals, if that makes sense. And so, yes, you might be using a food scale to measure your food, which I highly encourage because it just makes it easier, easy to use, it tells you what it is, you can log it that way, but it's okay to be within 30%. It's okay to estimate when you go to restaurants. It's okay not to log every ingredient. If you have a complex recipe, just log the big ones or log a few of the ingredients and make sure that they represent the total size of the dish so that you don't get too obsessive about it and don't try to be perfect. The consistency is what's important. If you can log daily within 30%, you are going to get to your goals, versus skipping days regularly and not logging on those days. So we want to log everything, but we don't want to stress about hitting the exact Ram, knowing that there is all this tolerance in our ability as humans to log this stuff and also food labels, and also you don't know what's in the restaurant food all the time, and that's okay. Just logging it all on a daily basis is going to get you there, and having this more flexible approach is going to reduce the pressure on you and make tracking this very manageable, less neurotic part of your daily routine. And at the end of the day, when you're doing it this way, if you look at your screen time or macro factor, for example, you'll find it probably only takes a few minutes every day once you're in a routine.

The last thing here is I want to talk about dealing with uncertainty, the biggest sources of uncertainty for folks with calories is when they go out to eat and like unlabeled foods. Okay so, and that could be anything. That could be a food that has a label but it's not in the database. Or just like a common food that you're you bought, like a fresh food you know, like you got a package of meat, you're going to cook it up. It doesn't have a label. So you've got to know how to how to track it Right. So let's start with dining out and and we, by the way, we're going to have we have a lot more detailed modules on a lot of these topics in our foundations course.

This is this is more of a mini course on calories, but I wanted to address it because it is important to tracking your calories. So when you die now, you um have to learn to estimate right, like estimation becomes a skill, and this is about estimating portions or grams, and this is the reason I like logging everything in grams when you're at home to train your brain to think in terms of the same unit of measurement. So when you go to a restaurant, you're going to say, oh yeah, 100 grams of rice, 150 grams of chicken, 75 grams of broccoli, and I'm going to throw in 10 grams of butter, because I know they put butter in everything at a restaurant, and that's it right. And that whole tracking exercise takes you like two minutes. When you get home Maybe you took a quick photo of it just to remember later on, but that's it Like.

That is the way I would approach eating out. And when you pick foods from the database, I would just pick common foods that are close enough. Or here's a little trick when you go to a restaurant, pick a chain restaurant's entry, like an entry from Applebee's or Chili's or something like that that's close to what you had in this other restaurant that is not a chain restaurant, right? Simple things like that. Educated guesses, they're part of the process. They're kind of fun actually when you think of it that way, as a little bit of a game. And then you can just enjoy the culinary pleasure of going out to eat without guilt and without stressing over the eating or the tracking part of it. And that goes back to my previous point about you know, track everything, but don't sweat about making it perfect. Just the tracking alone is going to get you where you want to be. And then same thing for common foods and unlabeled foods. You'll get used to looking up the things that you need Like.

One of the common questions is do I do raw meat or cooked meat? Either? The answer is either. Don't sweat it. Raw meat is probably preferred because then you don't have to worry about the moisture that gets lost when you cook and how much that can change the weight. But I'll tell you what. I log a lot of my meat as cooked meat and it hasn't slowed me down Again. It gets you within the ballpark of where you want. Just make sure it's the right entry. But once you get there, it's not a big deal. So embracing calorie tracking is about empowering yourself. It's empowering yourself with knowledge and control. This is not about binding yourself to rigid rules, right? This is a tool, just like if you used a budget. It's a tool for making informed decisions that align with your aspirations for your health and fitness. That's it, all right.

Next up, we are going to talk about how to adjust your calorie intake for real life scenarios so you can really ramp up that flexibility and sustainability, like we've been touching on up till now, and until then, make sure to keep tracking every day, log everything, stay consistent, but don't worry about being perfect and if you're within 30%, that is okay and that's how we start to enjoy the process and not worry about the end result, because we are going to get there. See you in the next module. So again, that was a module from Crack, the Calorie Code, one of many high value courses within Wits and Weights Physique University, and if you're interested in learning more, definitely click the link in my show notes. We are still open for enrollment. We've got a ton of students that joined in the first few weeks.

It is becoming a thriving community. We've had our first live coaching call, we've had our check-ins and it's just an amazing place to be if you're looking to build your dream physique and do it based on the evidence, effectively, time efficiently, without all the silly deprivation, restriction, chronic cardio, restrictive diets and all the other things that others tend to flock to. So if you're looking for that evidence-based approach, again, you can learn more about wits and weights physique university by clicking the link in the show notes or going to witsandweightscom slash physique. That's witsandweightscom slash physique. We'll see you in the next episode, the next quick wits and stay strong. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits and Weights If you found value in today's episode and know someone else who's looking to level up their wits or weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them and make sure to hit the follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.